Hey Folk,
Thanks to Grimfinger for his site and his focus. I think that PBM and PBeM have a lot of value beyond and irregardless of technology. In particular a dynamic of game design that is enhanced by technology, but not dominated by it.
Over time. What I mean by that will be clearer - though I'd guess that those who have been thinking about time and processing as a part of their game designs are way ahead of me in that.
The point is this. Our lives in the interconnected age allows for a different kind of game design that relies less on scheduling and then sitting in a room for three agonizing hours - constantly in realtime - with folk in order to play a game as the MMO's would have it, and more on the 15 or so minutes a day that are free for you, in non-realtime, on your schedule, to process a few minutes here and there and to form a story that you have the capability to play and write yourself.
Play by email is an extension of the same aesthetic that play by mail focused on, non-realtime, turn based storytelling. And it's something that should really help us as game players find a better mechanism that the one that has been dominating game playing and storytelling of late.
This niche may be just 5% of the market, but it's still a good niche, and a much more rewarding one for the few that will climb to it's challenge than the canned experience of a graphical dungeion crawl.
I have a lot of thoughts to offer to this community, though in many ways I'm still new to it.
Feel free to school me where you feel it's worthwhile.
I'll probably post at a pretty slow pace as what I'm doing now is slowly digesting your contents to provide some fun background and motivation to think about while I work on some tools that I'm working on.
But I look forward to meeting you all and hope the relationship and focus to be a lasting one,
-Cort
Thanks to Grimfinger for his site and his focus. I think that PBM and PBeM have a lot of value beyond and irregardless of technology. In particular a dynamic of game design that is enhanced by technology, but not dominated by it.
Over time. What I mean by that will be clearer - though I'd guess that those who have been thinking about time and processing as a part of their game designs are way ahead of me in that.
The point is this. Our lives in the interconnected age allows for a different kind of game design that relies less on scheduling and then sitting in a room for three agonizing hours - constantly in realtime - with folk in order to play a game as the MMO's would have it, and more on the 15 or so minutes a day that are free for you, in non-realtime, on your schedule, to process a few minutes here and there and to form a story that you have the capability to play and write yourself.
Play by email is an extension of the same aesthetic that play by mail focused on, non-realtime, turn based storytelling. And it's something that should really help us as game players find a better mechanism that the one that has been dominating game playing and storytelling of late.
This niche may be just 5% of the market, but it's still a good niche, and a much more rewarding one for the few that will climb to it's challenge than the canned experience of a graphical dungeion crawl.
I have a lot of thoughts to offer to this community, though in many ways I'm still new to it.
Feel free to school me where you feel it's worthwhile.
I'll probably post at a pretty slow pace as what I'm doing now is slowly digesting your contents to provide some fun background and motivation to think about while I work on some tools that I'm working on.
But I look forward to meeting you all and hope the relationship and focus to be a lasting one,
-Cort